What seems like a lifetime ago, people used to commute to the office seven days a week for an eight-hour work day. However, things have changed — likely never returning to what it once was. This is because, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many employees don’t want to be in the office full-time. Better yet, they’ve also realized they don’t have to be in the office full-time to do their jobs.
In our State of Workplace Experience in 2022 report, we found that only 48% of landlords operate office buildings with more than 75% occupancy, and an additional 20% operate office buildings with just 51-75% occupancy. This has led to companies to adopt hybrid work models so that they can make it easy for employees and give them more flexibility in their daily work schedules.
However, according to Hubspot, today’s employers are battling the trend of digital anonymity, both in identity privacy online and physical work location, hours, and preferences. Methods that employers once used to aid in building community and spark conversations with potential new customers and are no longer relevant nor effective. As the workforce continues to shift, companies need to stay ahead of the curve by rethinking organizational use of workplace technology. By doing so, growth teams can stay one step ahead and establish connections in a disconnected world.
Creating Connections
The majority of disconnection is driven by lack of adequate technology and poor user experience. Creating connections must start with equipping your internal teams with the technology they need to better understand and engage with your customers and employees alike — such as, for example, an employee experience platform. Hubspot signifies three major principles one can follow to create connections with customers, all of which can be achieved through technology:
- Understand and respect your customers: In order to engage with customers, you have to understand them. Similar to understanding your customers, you need to understand your employees. In this economy, the place where people work needs to evoke a positive, emotional response from employees. This connection is the key behind increasing employee engagement and satisfaction.
- Align the back-end tools with front-end goals: Developing a well-crafted connected customer journey means that your data and systems are working seamlessly in the back-end to deliver a solid front-end experience to your customers. The success of the workplace now highly depends on how much value it offers employees through enhanced workplace experience.
- Empathize with the customer journey: To create a truly remarkable experience, you have to empathize with your customers at every phase of their journey — from awareness to advocacy. It’s important that employers consider employee journeys by focusing on keeping employees engaged while fostering a better company culture.
Digital Solutions
With a Workplace Experience Platform for the office, companies can improve the quality of their in-office and hybrid experiences. HqO’s technology services connect employees by providing features such as personalized content, events, and ongoing programming, all of which create a shared experience and sense of community for employees.
An employee experience platform also offers utility to employees by providing functions such as mobile access, flexible room booking, transit information, and service requests. These capabilities can all be channeled into one unified mobile app, which gives employees access to all physical and online workplace resources.
A workplace experience platform should be used as a two-way communications hub, so that the companies can learn about their employees and how to best support them. With the capabilities stated above, the workplace can become a productive and connected community for companies and their employees — even if they’re not in the office.
Looking for more information on how you can optimize your office space? Schedule a demo today.
